Opinion: Kansas shows limits of extreme tax-cutting ideology

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — “Bleeding Kansas” has become a battleground again, this time as an unexpectedly pivotal state in this year’s midterm elections for deciding which party will control the U.S. Senate.

We learned in grade school that violent conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery forces in the territory of Kansas just before the Civil War led newspaper editor Horace Greeley to coin the term “Bleeding Kansas.”

Kansas joined the Union as a free state in 1861, just before the outbreak of war, and politically has been loyal to the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln since then.

It has, for instance, elected only three Democrats to the U.S. Senate in that time, the last in 1932. All the rest, with the exception of two Populists in the 19th century, have been Republicans.

Most of the governors have also been Republican, with the prominent exception of Kathleen Sebelius, who was elected governor in 2002 and re-elected in 2006 before she went to Washington to serve as Health and Human Services secretary in President Barack Obama’s cabinet.

In short, states don’t come much redder than Kansas. Until this year, when a combination of circumstances has resulted in the incumbent Republican governor, Sam Brownback, and an incumbent Republican senator, Pat Roberts, facing possible defeat in November’s election.

More than just an entertaining man-bites-dog story, the unexpected turn of events in Kansas shows that the political situation in this country is more fluid that the trench warfare in Washington might indicate.

One of the main factors in this potential upset is the ideological warfare that Brownback has subjected the state to since he took office in 2011.

He has implemented a radical form of small government with the zeal of an ayatollah, cutting taxes and slashing government spending on everything from education to support for the arts.

It turns out, however, that Kansans, even dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, like decent schools for their children and even subsidies for cultural programs, and there has been a backlash against Brownback, especially since his policies have failed to produce the economic boom he promised.

In recent polls, his Democratic challenger, Paul Davis, minority leader in the state House of Representatives, has been a few points ahead of Brownback.

Over the weekend, however, a report surfaced that Davis was caught up in the police raid of a strip club in 1998 in southeastern Kansas.

Davis was 26 and unmarried at the time and claims he was there because the owner of the club was a client of his law firm. The raid was prompted by suspicions of drug dealing at the club, though Davis was not implicated in that and was not charged with any crime.

Davis quickly explained he was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” but the feeling is the report could damage his prospects.

Ultimately, however, whether Kansans vote for Brownback to continue his neoliberal crusade is their business. Win or lose, Brownback and his social-engineering experiment are primarily a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

More important is that the backlash against Brownback jeopardizes the re-election chances for Roberts, and with it the chances of Republicans gaining control of the Senate.

Roberts, who was first elected to the Congress in 1981, has been under fire because he hasn’t really lived in his home state in years, listing a rented room in Dodge City that he rarely visits as his Kansas address.

In fact, after Roberts fended off a Tea Party challenger in the primary in August, his campaign manager told Kansas journalists the senator had gone “back home” to rest after the grueling campaign — “home” being his residence in suburban Virginia, outside Washington.

Earlier this month, his Democratic challenger, Chad Taylor, the district attorney in Shawnee County, withdrew from the race in favor of an independent candidate, Greg Orman, so as to not divide the anti-Roberts vote.

If elected, Orman, who made a fortune as an entrepreneur and private-equity investor, is expected to caucus with the Democrats if they retain the majority, or if his vote would give them the majority.

Even before, Orman had been running ahead of Roberts in the polls, and Taylor won a court skirmish with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to get his name removed from the ballot to avoid accidentally siphoning off votes from the independent.

The saga has some important lessons. For one thing, it shows voters will favor lower taxes only until it cuts into government services they want.

And, as former House majority leader Eric Cantor of Virginia discovered with his surprise primary defeat in June, and Roberts may find in November, voters don’t like being taken for granted while lawmakers pursue their own agendas in Washington.

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